Hallam, Lewis, Jr. (1740–1808), actor and manager. He came to America with his parents in 1752 and gave his first performance in Williamsburg in The Merchant of Venice. He continued to act small parts with the troupe until it left for Jamaica. In 1758 he returned with a new company organized by his mother and stepfather, David Douglass, the ensemble that soon was known as the American Company. By this time his art had matured, and Hallam was the company's leading man. He was thin, of medium height, and not unattractive despite a noticeable cast in one eye. To him fell the honor of being the earliest known American Hamlet and of playing Arsaces, the hero of the first professionally produced American play, The Prince of Parthia (1767). He essayed Romeo to his mother's Juliet, and ranged from Young Norval to central figures in contemporary comedies. After spending the Revolutionary War years in the West Indies, he returned in 1784 to reopen the Southwark Theatre in Philadelphia and the John Street Theatre in New York. With John Henry he revitalized the American Company, working with John Hodgkinson and William Dunlap after Henry's withdrawal. Although he was approaching fifty, Hallam continued to play the same leading parts he had assumed twenty years before, for he was as good a performer as was active at the time, and he frequently staged imaginative, responsible, and applauded productions. For example, he restored Hamlet's Grave Diggers' scene, which traditionally had been shortened or eliminated, and attempted some semblance of correct costuming. With the opening of the Park Theatre he withdrew from management but continued to act almost until his death. Seemingly improvident, he is said to have died in poverty. Looking back, John Durang recalled Hallam as “a sterling actor, but an inactive manager. His style of acting was of the old school. He was celebrated in all the gentlemanly dashing profligateness of young men, in epilogues, correct in Harlequin, and performed them with ease and spirit to a great age.”
American Company
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The Hallam Company, which later became the American Company, was the first fully professional theatre company to perform in North America.[1]
The company was organised by William Hallam (1712?–1758?), former proprietor of the New Wells Theatre in London, and was led by his brother Lewis Hallam (1714?–1756?). Their company consisted of 12 adults and 3 children, drawn from English actors of "modest accomplishment". They arrived by the vessel Charming Sally at Yorktown, Virginia, on 2 June 1752, and made their early performances in nearby Williamsburg. Their first performance, The Merchant of Venice, is generally considered to be the first professional staging of Shakespeare in America.[2]
In 1753 the Hallam company moved to New York, and in 1754 they played in Philadelphia and in Charleston, South Carolina. In 1755 the company moved to the West Indies, and merged with the company of David Douglass. On Lewis' death, Douglass married his widow. Three years later, the company returned to tour the mainland, as the "American Company".[3]
Lewis' son, Lewis Hallam, Jr., eighteen at the time of the American Company's first tour, took leading roles alongside Douglass. Lewis Jr.'s style was described as declaratory rather than realistic, but he was much admired and became known as America's leading Shakespearean interpreter.[3] Douglass had his limitations: one Alexander Graydon described him as "rather a decent than shining actor". However, he was a capable manager and he gave North America its first Falstaff and King John. Within the repertoire was Cymbeline, which proved a popular vehicle for two of the company's actresses, Margaret Cheer and Nancy Hallam.[4]
In Quaker and Puritan areas, the company encountered religious opposition to theatre in general. At Rhode Island in 1761 they were obliged to perform Othello disguised as "a series of moral dialogues".[5] In 1774, the Continental Congress banned theatre entirely, and the company resettled in Jamaica. By that time, Hugh F. Ranking calculates that the company had performed at least 180 times, their repertoire having included fourteen of Shakespeare's plays. After the peace of 1783, the company returned to New York, with Lewis Hallam Jr. as the leading actor, and John Henry as his co-manager.[5]
Lewis Jr. is believed to be the first American actor to perform in blackface in 1769.[6]
References
- ^ Morrison, Michael A. Shakespeare in North America in Wells, Stanley and Stanton, Sarah The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare on Stage (Cambridge University Press, 2002) pp.230-232
- ^ Morrison, p.230
- ^ a b Morrison, p.231
- ^ Morrison, pp.231-2
- ^ a b Morrison, p.232
- ^ Tosches, Nick (2002). Where Dead Voices Gather. Back Bay. p. 10. ISBN 0316895377.
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